My Back Pages is what I would call an irregular feature that I’ve got going here. Essentially, every now and then, I dig out a book from my old shelves and my childhood to examine it with a new perspective and more than a hint of nostalgia. I have no idea why I’m doing this, and what I’ll end up with, but I figured that it might be slightly interesting. More interesting than what usually happens here anyway. Yes, it takes its name from the Dylan song. The following is a short introductory post I wrote for it. At the end of this page, you’ll also find a list of the posts in this series.
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I love children’s books. Good children’s books to me are these self-contained marvels that are able to fuel and spark the imaginations of (who else) children, and put that way are really marvels in their own right. I think they’re difficult to craft, wonderful to hold and just a joy to read. To that end, I’ve even planned for a children’s book section in my personal library, though it’s still just getting started and is really made up of a few select volumes now.
Fact is, I think children’s books, like children’s television programmes, are important. There’s a certain nobility about it, I guess, that we should always strive for more, for better, because children deserve more and deserve better. They deserve to be shown that there’s always something greater, that they should ask for more. And I think about the books I see children reading in this part of the world (if we presume to be optimistic enough to say that most of them still do), and not forgetting the TV shows, and I always wonder if there’s more to be had. Because children should get more. They ought to be enchanted, enthralled and scared out of their wits. They shouldn’t be afraid to imagine, because a child’s imagination is precious, and it’s something you want them to hang onto. That sense of fear, that reckless abandon, that willingness to be swept by magic and wonder, those are things that help you keep your imagination, I’d like to think.
I think this fairly recent (a year or two, maybe?) fascination with children’s books came about because one day I looked back and I realised how tragically limited my childhood catalogue was. I didn’t get many really nice books like Where The Wild Things Are (which, incidentally, appeared on my shelf in 2008, about fifteen years later than it should have), didn’t have many memorable stories that I could tell. It wasn’t until much later that I dove into Alice, read fables, and actually treasured books. It made me sort of sad to note this.
What I did have, however, was plenty of non-fiction books. I had tomes about animals and Mother Nature, about bugs and the night sky and trees and geese. I had science books too difficult for myself then. I had encyclopaedias about vampires and sea monsters and geese, I mean, ghosts. I also had plenty of puzzle books, brimming with adventure and intrigue, and always affixed with the solutions so I could sneakily peek at them.
That’s not to say I was short on fiction either. I had some pretty memorable books, some of them bought (though rarely, I think) and others as prizes for placing well in class. It’s just that I think I didn’t spend so much time on fiction back then, and when I did, I pushed up a bit higher and left children’s fiction behind.
I still think it’s a pity though.
Yesterday, I took a look through the old shelves where I keep books that I don’t consider to be a part of my library. I started flipping through one at a time, those children’s books, and I got quite caught up with all the memories. It was great, really, to see them all again, with different eyes, in a different perspective. So, I thought it’d be a nice feature to have them up here, one at a time, every now and then, say, two weeks, maybe three. An irregular feature, let’s say, just to talk about what it used to be, what it still is now, and all that stuff.
I’m not sure if it’ll make a nice feature, but we’ll have a shot at it, won’t we?
d
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#01: The Usborne Detective’s Handbook [28Feb2009]
#02: Birds Do The Strangest Things [20March2009]
#03: Dilly The Dinosaur [15May2009]
